Art of creating memorials of deceased persons



UNITED STATES PATENT GEEICE.

LEWIS NICHOLAS \VORTHINGTON, OF CANANDAIGUA, NEW YORK.

ART OF CREATING MEMORIALS OF DECEASED PERSONS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 473,597, dated April 26, 1892. Application filed July 10, 1891- Serial No. 399,086- (No specimens.)

To aZZ whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, LEwIs Nrononns Won- THINGTON, a citizen of the United States, residing at Oanandaigua, Ontario county, New York, have invented new and useful Improvements in the Art of Creating Memorials of Deceased Persons, of which the followingis a specification.

Veneration of the dead being an attribute of humanity as ancient as it is universal, the desire to preserve the bodies of the departed has characterized all races wherever mankind has raised itself above the brute level. Burial in the earth has been at all times controlled and modified by this central idea, which has led even savage man to bury his dead in places set apart and consecrated to this special use. The survival and extension of the custom of earth-burial among the populous civilized nations of today has, however, given rise to serious questions of sanitary expediency and to protests that find their expression in the revival of an ancient custom of cremation, the spread of which, although approved by reason and scientific opinion, is retarded by the fact of immediate total destruction of the human frame as such, and the practical elimination of even the tangible substance of the body. Earth-burial being a fixed habit of mankind itis difficult to change through an appeal to reason, in spite of the knowledge that decay of the body in the earth is but a slower form of oremation. The one commends itself to the feelings as the similitude of peaceful sleep,

while the other suggests an agonizing change ending in oblivion.

The great and obvious advantages of oremation make its universal adoption a thing to be desired, and my invention tends in this direction, its object being to assure the preservation of the remains of the deceased in a form which may also preserve the facial identity.

Stated in the terms of an industrial art, my invention is the art or process of creating a memento of a deceased person, consisting in treating the incinerated remains with a suitable combining substance to produce a plastic hardening material, and producing with such material a has-relief or other charteristic article or souvenir; and it also consists in such article or souvenir made up of or containing the incinerated remains of a deceased person.

In practically carrying out my invention various methods may be employed, according to the specific end in view. For example, a suitable mold having been'taken and prepared by any well-known method of the features of a deceased person, according to the view desired, (bust, profile, &c.,) the ashes of the deceased, after cremation, are pulverized and suitably incorporated with plasterof-paris, silicate of potash, or other suitable cementing medium, and given the proper form by the mold so prepared, producing, for instance, a profile bas-relief of the deceased. When suitably hardened, the features may be colored with pigments, if desired, or electroplated with gold, silver, or other suitable metal, producing a portrait which may be framed or incased in any suitable manner and provided by engraving or ohiseling with an epitaph or other legend relating to the deceased.

It will be obvious that other objects than portraitures of the deceased may be made of the remains; but it will probably occur to most persons that this form of memorial will be most suitable, in order that, as ancestral portraits or other family heirlooms, they may be preserved with the respect and veneration naturally attaching to objects of this nature, which have a sacred value.

I may in this connection explain that my object in seeking the protection of the patent laws is to control the introduction and establishment of these memorials in a manner and upon a basis that shall commend itself to reason and feeling and prevent a degraded and unworthy use of the inventive idea herein set forth until a public sentiment shall have been established for its further protection under suitable conditions to serve the best uses. Such conditions would obtain, for example, when cemeteries are utilized for thebuildingand maintenance of family memorial buildings in which the herein-described mementoes of deceased relatives may be preserved and exhibited under proper conditions.

I claim as my invention and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States- 1. The improvement in the art of creating memorials of deceased persons, consisting in first treating the incinerated remains with a suitable combining substance to produce a plastic hardening material, and, second, molding or otherwise fashioning the same into memorial forms identifying the deceased and suitable for preservation, substantially as set forth.

2. The improvement in the art of creating memorials of deceased persons, consisting in first treating the incinerated remains with a suitable combining substance to produce a plastic hardening material; second, molding" or otherwise fashioning the same into memorial forms identifying the deceased and suitable for preservation, and, third, electroplating or otherwise covering the same with a layer of metal, substantially as set forth.

3. As a new article of manufacture and use,a bas-relief, tablet, or other memorial ob ject, identifying the deceased person, formed of or containing the incinerated remains of such person treated with a combining and hardening substance, whereby it is rendered firm and durable, substantially as set forth.

4. As a new article of manufacture, a basrelief, tablet, or other memorial object, identifying a deceased person, formedof or containing the incinerated remains ofsuch person and electroplated or otherwise covered by a layer ofmetal, preserving the external contour of said object, substantially as set forth.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand in the presence of two subscribing Witnesses.

LEWIS NICHOLAS WORTHINGTON.

Witnesses: E. R. DONOHUE,

L. M. HOSEA. 

